Beit Polska Featured in Spring 2015 Kulanu News

Kulanu (All of Us) has included “us” in their latest newsletter. We are featured along a number of “new “uses.” We thank Judy Manelis, Jack Zeller, andHarriet Bograd among the many devoted leaders of Kulanu. This is the second time we are featured in their magazine. We have also been the beneficiary of key grants that have aided our Sidur project and our efforts in Bialystok.

We are touched by the generosity of spirit expressed by the Kulanu efforts on our behalf and on the behalf of other “isolated” communities. It is no secret, that most Jews are surprised and some are even resentful when they learn that there is a serious effort by “us” — Progressive Jews and other Jews in Poland to build Jewish life. Last week, an Israeli who left Israel to seek his fortune and apparently found it, informed me that “Jews have no right to live in Poland.”

When I encounter people on forays in the fundraising world, I am often met with an incredible anger: “How dare you support Jewish life in Poland! After all that happened to my grandfather, how can you…?”

Judith Manelis, board member of Friends of Jewish Renewal in Poland

This misplaced anger has many more iterations but today my point is to thank Kulanu because they have sent encouragement in the form of moral support, editorial support, some money, and most of all their good spirit.

Thanks to Kulanu for including “all of us.”

A special thanks to Judy Manelis who is a new board member of Friends of Jewish Renewal in Poland for her editorial support, patience and energy.